Habbits for Productivity, Mental Health & Physical Health
2020 has been a year of new challenges and to tackle them I developed several new habits over the course of the year. Below are three of the most crucial habits I’ve implemented into my daily routine to help me be more productive, boost my mental health, and maintain my physical health.
Journaling
Journaling has helped me take all the noise in my head and put it somewhere else. I’ve never been big on journaling. It’s a practice I’ve tried in the past, but never stuck with because I only wrote when things were going horribly wrong. Until this year I had often equated journaling with venting or a place to write secrets.
But when I hit a breaking point back in September and I constantly felt like my mind was racing due to all the what-ifs, doubts, and fears bouncing around my head, I decided to give it another go. Every day I wrote about things that happened, how I was feeling, what kinds of writing projects or blog posts I was brainstorming, things that scared me, things that made me happy—you get the idea. Some entries were two lines, others two pages. Even if it felt silly, even if things were going good, even when I was feeling okay, I wrote.
Through this habit, I’ve started to become less critical of myself and more focused on cultivating a stronger mindset. By going back through my old entries I’ve also begun to see certain patterns, track how I’ve grown over the last few months, and learn what areas of my mental health I need to work on.
Leaving My Phone in the Kitchen
This habit was a big one. With my interaction with people significantly decreasing due to social distancing, the amount of time I spent on my phone skyrocketed. It’s awesome having a device that allows me to communicate with people across the globe with a few swipes and a couple of clicks. But having that much connectivity in the palm of my hand all the time does have its drawbacks. From March to September, I spent hours laying in bed, scrolling through social media, diving down YouTube black holes, refreshing news apps night after night—sometimes until two in the morning! It was pretty absurd and the doomscrolling was not only wreaking havoc on my mental health but physical health as well. I wasn’t getting enough sleep and so obviously my brain was on overload throughout the day, which left me feeling foggy and less productive, and I could feel myself growing more and more anxious because of it.
At first, it was tough to leave my phone in the kitchen. When I was lying awake in bed, my knee-jerk reaction was to reach for my phone. There’s a comfort in scrolling and, being a social media manager when I would answer late-night comments on my company’s social channels I would get a boost of dopamine. And even after I started to implement this change there were certainly nights that I would bring my phone to bed with me and leave it plugged in within arm’s length of my pillow.
But since Thanksgiving, I’ve started to finally get some momentum and have consistently been keeping my phone out of my bedroom. And although it’s only been about a month and a half, I can already feel the difference in the quality of my sleep and since I’ve swapped my phone for a book, I’ve started to read a lot more as well—which is always a good thing for a writer.
Sidenote: If you’re going to give this a try, I’d recommend getting an alarm clock. I have this dinosaur of a digital clock, but it’s been getting the job done.
The Two-Day Rule
I’ve mentioned before that I’m a fan of Matt D’Avella’s YouTube channel. He’s a filmmaker, who’s probably best known for his documentaries Minimalism and The Minimalists: Less Is Now. On his channel he creates videos around building habits and optimizing productivity. One of these tips is the two-day rule. It’s pretty straight forward: You don’t take off more than two days for a habit you’re trying to build. This method offers you the opportunity to take days off when/if needed, but it also pushes you to stay consistent.
D’Avella, Matt. “Two Day Rule Calendar.” YouTube, 3 September 2019.
Since the start of 2020, I’ve been using this rule with my fitness routine. At the beginning of the year, I had started the journey of healing the herniated discs in my back, and needless to say, the typical motivation I had to go to the gym was non-existent. Contrary to popular belief, movement is a crucial part of healing this kind of injury. So I used the two-day rule to stay accountable. Two days in a row I went to the gym (because it was freezing outside) to walk on the treadmill at a leisurely pace and do my rehab exercises. And as time went on I was able to walk for longer and then on an incline and little by little I started to get better. When lockdown hit, I wasn’t nervous about not being able to go to the gym because my goal was still the same: just move.
This is the chart I made to track how many days I’m writing over the course of 2021.
What this rule has helped me prove to myself is that it’s not about how many days in a row you work out. It’s reinforced that being consistent over a long period of time and intentionally giving myself days off will eventually result in the progress I want to see.
